Chap 2 The Eye of Surveillance

What evidence is there to suggest that the Ring of Power is influencing our world? And what evidence is there that the story in The Lord of the Rings is being played out again at another level, as Robert has suggested?

Walking down the street in any town in the country in May 1999, it wouldn’t take long to come across a poster of the latest Star Wars Film. Cassie found herself staring with growing disbelief at the image of Liam Neeson, a member of the elite fighting force called known at the Jedi. He holds up a light sabre as if it were a shining sword. She took in his long brown hair, the plain brown clothes, the eagle-like nose and the grim expression. Here was a man who fitted the description of Aragorn, the King-in-waiting in the story of The Lord of the Rings, in a most uncanny way. He also held a great sword: Aragorn was the wielder of the great sword Anduril, Flame of the West. There were other posters advertising the film Godzilla, which showed just one large, menacing eye. If Liam Neeson was Aragorn, this was the Eye of Sauron. Later, when re-reading the description of Sauron’s Eye in Tolkien’s book, the comparison was confirmed: it was an exact description of the Eye of Godzilla – yellow with a black slit for a pupil.

Most amazing of all was the timing. These films were being shown at the end of a millennium to coincide with the original Story being re-activated once again at other levels which means, according to the law of ‘as above so below’, that those events will impress itself upon our world. Here was proof that this was already happening.

The ever-watchful Eye of Sauron is present in many ways. It occurred to us that television, cinema, computer screens and CCTV cameras all share characteristics of The Eye. They even have the optic nerve, which is the electrical wiring. The moving, watchful eye of surveillance cameras can be directly compared with the ranging Eye of Sauron as he monitored developments in the world far and wide.

Television creates an artificial world and in recent years we have increasingly been fed an artificial diet of sex and violence. Video games have taken the violence to new extremes. Even the expression for the internet as ‘the worldwide web’ aroused our suspicions, as it brought to mind the giant evil spider, Shelob, in the Story. She very nearly killed and devoured Frodo, the Ringbearer, on his seemingly hopeless quest. The Web, of course, is a very useful resource but it can also be put to evil use through the misuse of ‘chat rooms’ and exchange of pornographic material, Again, it can create an artificial world cut off from social interaction and relationships, and the real world.

Sauron’s powers of surveillance can partly be attributed to possessing one of the Seven Stones of Seeing which resemble the gypsy’s crystal ball.[i] Only Saruman and Denethor, Steward of Gondor, in addition to Sauron, possessed this powerful but dangerous tool. The other Stones had been lost during the many wars. Both men, in their different ways succumbed to the will of Sauron. When Denethor looked into the crystal ball, he only saw what Sauron wished him to see, which was the military strength of the Dark Lord, beyond count. This slowly poisoned the mind of Denethor and he succumbed to the evil of despair and hopelessness. To a large extent we have no control over what is fed to us on television and many of us are alert to this and protest about the foul language and violence. More recently, people have been concerned with the ‘dumbing down’ in the programmes on offer. In other words, we are being given a distorted view of world affairs, just as Sauron gave a distorted view to Denethor.

Robert told us of how, when asked to see if he could help a family which was having problems, he walked into the house and removed the television. A week later, peace had descended on the household. Instead of watching television constantly, which made them subtly bored and irritable, and was the cause of outbursts of violent temper, they had been forced to find something creative to do with their free time. Most of us do manage to be selective and have a balance. But are many of us, like Denethor, endlessly shown selective scenes of violence in the trouble spots of the world, in danger of succumbing to a feeling of helplessness?

We can remember the moment when the significance of ‘ring’ roads struck us. There has been a proliferation of these in recent years in order to remove traffic from town centres. When Cassie next looked at a map she noticed that these ‘ring’ roads, such as the M25, actually resemble gigantic spiders: the roads leading into them looking remarkably like the legs of a spider. The extra large spider sitting over London could be likened to Shelob in the Story, and the smaller ones, crouching over the lesser cities, are her offspring. It is therefore not surprising that we get ‘road rage’ if we think that these black, tarmac ‘rings’ and roads are being used to channel evil energy from another level. The One Ring was created to control all the other Rings and all, therefore, became evil.[ii] The powerful men who wore them were subverted and eventually controlled by Sauron’s will, all except for the dwarves. Only the three Elven Rings were free. They had been forged in secret without Sauron’s knowledge.

In a telephone conversation with Robert in the summer of 1999 Robert said something rather staggering, which shows in the most graphic way that history repeats itself. He said that the White House in the United States of America is Minas Tirith with its white tower, and Mordor is Afghanistan. However, the major players are not yet in place. Just as in Tolkien’s story there is the division of East and West, so is it the case in our times. He identified The Fens with the Dead Marshes, which Frodo and Samwise crossed with Gollum as their guide. The Forest of Dean is the Shire – not so far from our meeting place – and the New Forest is the Forest of Fangorn.

In The Lord of the Rings we learn of the superior Numenorean race of men. They were exceptionally tall, black haired and grey-eyed. Their superiority also lay in their exceptional abilities – they had bright eyes with particularly acute eyesight, great physical strength and endurance, exceptional hearing and the gift of foresight. Aragorn, the future king, was of this race of men and one of his names was Thorongil, which means ‘eagle-eyed’. Has anyone ever given a thought as to the origins of Superman? He clearly belongs to a superior race of men. But why is he always dark haired and blue eyed and never blonde and blue-eyed? We realised that his origins are most probably Numenorean. For us this was yet further evidence of the truth of Tolkien’s story.

As if to press home the difference between the races in the story of The Lord of the Rings, among the television presenters at Ascot this year (2006) was the extraordinary sight of ex-jockey, Willy Carson, who is extremely short, standing beside the statuesque model Jodie Kidd. There is a spectacular difference in height: they really do look like representatives from two different races. Willy Carson resembles a hobbit or ‘halfling’, not only in height, but he has the round face and is unquenchably cheerful and talkative – just like Tolkien’s description of hobbits.

Most profound of all is the description of the Ring itself, as a plain, gold band without a gem. It suddenly dawned on us that this exactly describes the wedding ring. Can this be mere coincidence? Wouldn’t it be fair to say that the married state, for women certainly, has often been a source of cruelty and tyranny? This has been truer the higher up the social scale you go. It was not so long ago, even in the West, that a husband had absolute jurisdiction over his wife, and his wife’s property became his on their marriage. The absolute power a husband wields over his wife still persists in many countries today. Nor was it uncommon for men to change character for the worse on becoming married. We have all heard stories of how some husbands will start to ill treat their wives, having given no indication of being capable of such behaviour during the period of courtship. There are examples in literature such as in Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield. Does it suggest that the evil power of the One Ring is operating through those plain gold wedding bands (the word ‘band’ implies restriction)?

We then realised with amazement that the engagement ring, with its gem, so often either of sapphire, ruby or diamond, exactly resembles the Three Elven Rings in The Lord of the Rings. Elrond wore the Ring with the blue stone – sapphire, Gandalf, the red stone – ruby, and Galadriel the clear stone of adamant – diamond. The period of courtship seems to reflect the good energy of those rings, being a period of happiness, excitement and hope for the future.

This difference between the two states – that of being engaged and that of being married – is reflected in astrology. The love planet, Venus, is said by astrologers to cast her beneficent influence during the period of betrothal. On becoming married, the relationship then comes under the harsh rule of Saturn, with its qualities of duty, cold reserve and restriction, not to mention criticism.

[i] The Seven Stones of Seeing were gifts from the Elves to the Numenoreans. The Stones were brought to Middle Earth by the faithful Numenoreans from over the seas. In the time of the story of the Fellowship of the Ring, the Stones had passed out of living knowledge but we learn that three have survived and are being used in secret by Sauron, Saruman and Denethor, Steward of Minas Tirith.

[ii] The powerful men who wore them were subverted and eventually controlled by Sauron’s will, all except the dwarves. Only the Three Elven Rings were free as they had been forged in secret without Sauron’s knowledge.